Is America turning against Israel?
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Since the founding of Israel, the US has been one of its staunchest allies. But there's a shift underway in America. In recent weeks, Donald Trump and his deputy, J.D. Vance, have publicly criticised the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. And polling shows Americans have increasingly negative views of his government. Today, Guy Ziv, Associate Director of Israel Studies at American University, on what's driving the backlash. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.
Guy, a few weeks back, there was a major shift in tone when it comes to Israel from the US Vice President J.D. Vance. During a White House briefing, he said that there were not many world leaders who are sympathetic towards Israel at the moment.
Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time. And he happens to be the head of state of the world's superpower.
Tell me about that and what you made of it.
So these are tensions that stem from a combination of factors, including an ill-conceived war that went awry, divergent interests between the U.S. and Israel and Netanyahu's flawed U.S. strategy. And we normally think of Israel and the United States as interests as aligned, but more often than not, they are. When it comes to fighting Mideast terrorism, preventing Iran from going nuclear, promoting regional economic prosperity, and I can name others as well. But the MOU, the Memorandum of Understanding that was reached around the time that Vance made that statement, underscores an area of divergent interest.
If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.
All right. So that's what was expressing a frustration, a frustration that Israel, well, wasn't fully on board with this MOU.
That's right.
And that was really the latest sign of tensions between Donald Trump and the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who as you say four months ago launched this joint bombing campaign against Iran. Trump's language in recent weeks, it's been changing too, hasn't it, when it comes to the Israeli leader? What have we seen?
Yeah, we're seeing that there are now openly tensions between them.
You're effing crazy. That's what US President Donald Trump is alleged to have said to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a heated phone call over Israel's escalating threats and military strikes in Lebanon. If it weren't for Donald Trump, Israel would have been eviscerated. Your relationship with Netanyahu is... It's good, but we have to keep him a little bit sane.
I think that Trump is expressing a frustration he has felt for some time with Netanyahu. And so long as Netanyahu played ball and the interests were more or less aligned, he was willing to kind of keep his thoughts in private conversations he had with Netanyahu. But in recent months, with Trump's decision to end the war,
What historical context has shaped US-Israel relations?
given the politics here and the midterms that are coming up and Netanyahu's own interest in prolonging the war. Now we're seeing these tensions play out in the open.
And those comments from J.D. Vance and from Donald Trump, they're not the only sign of fracturing support in the U.S. for Israel, because in New York City, we just saw the Democratic House primaries where three pro-Palestinian candidates got up. Just tell me about that.
Well, we're seeing, and New York is a good example of that, we're seeing a growing segment of the left, people who, politicians who call themselves progressives, taking stronger and more strident anti-Israel stances. and kind of aligning with the Palestinians.
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